Kevin J. Manning, Ph.D. (born November 8, 1944 in New York, New York) is the former president of Stevenson University, the former Villa Julie College and the third largest independent university in Maryland. He was inaugurated as the fourth president of Villa Julie College on October 28, 2000, succeeding Carolyn Manuszak. He resigned from Stevenson University on November 29, 2016. Academic career Manning has more than 40 years of experience in higher education administration. A graduate of Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri (1967), Manning earned his M.S. in Counseling and Student Personnel from Shippensburg University (1976) and his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from The Ohio State University (1982). He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management (1989) and in 2006 was an invited participant at the Oxford Round Table, University of Oxford, England. Prior to his service at Stevenson, Manning held key administrative positions at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri; Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; and Immaculata University in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Stevenson presidency Manning has overseen 15 years of institutional growth and transformation for Stevenson University. After assuming the presidency of Villa Julie College in 2000, he took steps to establish a strategic plan for the institution, instituted its first faculty governance plan, developed its first formal capital campaign strategy, and enhanced its reputation through marketing and public relations. He also expanded its Board of Trustees and established the college's first President's Advisory Council. He led the institution through its transition to university status and its name change to Stevenson University in June 2008. In December 2011, the Chronicle of Higher Education listed Manning among the highest-paid college presidents in the country based on his 2009 salary of $1,493,655, although nearly two-thirds of the salary was a one-time deferred compensation payment accumulated during his first nine years as president of Stevenson. Manning's salary that year represented almost 2 percent of Stevenson's budget and was 16.1 times the university's average faculty salary of $92,500. Manning has spent his career focused on what constitutes effective learning. He has spoken and written frequently about the effectiveness of education for career preparation and on the use of theory, practice, and mentoring as effective forms of training. In 2001, he introduced to Stevenson the concept of Career Architecture, a process to help address the skills and tools students will need to determine their individual strengths and interests for the